1

Final Paper for the course

“ Cross-cultural communication “

About :the Relation between Intercultural communication and Negotiations

Presented to Professor Dr. Ana Cristina Petersen

By Abdelhamied Hany El-Rafie

MAIR student at Alliant International University

Mexico city campus

Abdelhamied ElRafie

2

Introduction:

People interacting with people from other cultures often feel 'lost'. Lacking familiar

attitudes , beliefs, behaviors, procedures or structures that shape day-to-day interactions,

people in cross-cultural situations often get disoriented, make mistakes and spend time

and energy merely surviving rather than understanding and appreciating the differences

they encounter. They also often fail to negotiate the most favorable agreements possible

or to resolve serious conflicts due to cultural misunderstandings.

So the following paper will discuss the relation between Intercultural relations and the

International negotiations and the paper will be divided into the following parts :

1-Defining culture.

2- Defining negotiation.

3-: Preparing for intercultural negotiations and dispute resolution.

4- Characteristics effective intercultural negotiators.

5- What affects the outcome of intercultural negotiations?

6- The difference between the US and Chinese negotiation styles .

7- conclusion .

Defining culture:

Culture is defined in The Cambridge Advanced learner’s dictionary as the” way of life

especially the general customs and beliefs of a particular group of people at a

particular time”(1) Culture is then the result of experience, values, religion, beliefs,

Abdelhamied ElRafie

3

attitudes, meanings, knowledge, social organizations, procedures, timing, roles, spatial

relations, concepts of the universe and material objects and possessions acquired or

created by groups of people, in the course of generations, through individual and group

effort and interactions. Culture manifests itself in patterns of language, behavior and

activities and provides models and norms for acceptable day-to-day interactions and

styles of communication. Culture enables people to live together in a society within a

given geographic environment, at a given state of technical development and at a

particular moment in time When we think of culture we often think of the national

cultures reported in the international media. However, culture is much broader and

encompasses the beliefs, attitudes and behaviors of diverse ethnic groups, clans, tribes,

regional subcultures or even neighborhoods. Culture also differentiates people by

religious or ideological persuasions, professions and educational backgrounds. Families

also have cultures, as do the two largest cultural groups in the world, men and women

. Companies, organizations and educational institutions also demonstrate unique

cultures. Culture as a growing dynamic thing consisting most significantly of shared

perceptions in the minds of its members. With all of these cultural variables, and

significant variations within cultures, as our World becomes a global village the need for

better understanding and communication among people from different cultures increases

.on this basis how can we develop any common understanding, or conclusions

about how a particular person or group from any one culture might behave in

negotiations or conflicts?(2)

Defining negotiations:

So what is negotiations it is defined in The Cambridge Advanced learner’s dictionary as

Abdelhamied ElRafie

4

the “ process of discussing something with someone in order to reach an

agreement with them or it is the process of discussions itself”(1) or in other words it is

“negotiation is the art and ability to use your nice power to convince by your

demand,persuade and motivate your partner to cooperate with you in order to reach an

agreement .

In the dictionary of diplomacy Negotiation is a discussion or talks between the

representatives of two or more states designed to produce an agreement on a point which

is either a shared concern or an issue between them .(2)

So negotiations are not limited to direct deal making over fixed values ,in all cultures

people negotiate to resolve disputes and to make decisions ,negotiators reach an

agreement resources these resources are distributed but the amount of resources for

distribution is not necessarily fixed . (6)

Preparing for intercultural negotiations and dispute resolution: this will need the

following:

.

1- . Understand that culture can make a difference and pay attention to it.

2. Develop an awareness of how cultural differences influence problem solving and negotiation.

3- Establishing, building and maintaining relationships

4- Orientation toward cooperation, competition and conflict

5- Appropriate and effective communications direct/indirect explicit/implicit emotional/non-emotional expression one-at-a-time talk vs. overlapping talk non-verbal communication

Abdelhamied ElRafie

5

6- Problem-solving or negotiation processes role of relationships and trust positional or interest-based bargaining styles ways of performing negotiation stages

7- Preferred outcomes to problems or conflicts

orientation towards 'winning' or success preferences concerning substantive, procedural or

psychological emphasis or components of outcomes culturally acceptable or sanctioned norms about outcomes

8- Roles and functions of third parties

relationship to parties procedures used involvement in substance partial/impartial

9- Management of time and timing expectations concerning duration timing of activities timing allowed for agreement

10- Use and set-up of venue and space

indoors/outdoors formal/informal space set-up

11. Educate yourself about a new culture.

Characteristics effective intercultural negotiators:

• Observant• Patient• Adaptable• Good listeners• Keep their promises• Negotiate in good faith• Realise culture influences everything

5 elements in intercultural negotiations:

Abdelhamied ElRafie

6

1. Players and the situation2. Decision-making styles3. National character4. Culture noise5. Interpreters and translators

What affects the outcome of intercultural negotiations?

1. Policy (concept, negotiators, role, protocol, significance)2. Interaction (language, persuasive ,time)3. Deliberation (trust risk-taking ,internal decision-making systems)4. Outcome (form of agreement)

Basic cultural orientation centers around the following items:

Beliefs, values, attitudes, behavior and norms (ethnocentrism) When there is a conflict

in intercultural communication In intercultural conflicts the following can be of

influence:

1. Thinking patterns2. Language barriers

1. Thinking patterns

Universalistic Nominalistic or hypothetical Intuitional or organismic dialectal

Universalistic:

Dominated by the principle of identity of thinking and being. • Hierarchical system of rigid concepts• Can be directly proved by human mind

We can find this in the French, Mediterranean and Latin American cultures.

Nominalistic/hypothetical:

Puts emphasis on induction and empiricism. Thinking is dominated by hypothetical concepts.

• Knowledge based on our sense perceptions and freely formed conceptions

Abdelhamied ElRafie

7

We can find this in the Anglo-Saxon countries.

Intuitional/organismic It’s a Mixture of universalistic and nominalistic. It denies the existence of innate ideas

but assumes that, with the assistance of the insight of the human mind, we are able to

attribute knowledge to the general truth.Intuition and unity of the whole

We can find this in Germany, Slavic Central European countries.

Dialectical :

Denies the principle of the existence of innate ideas. It assumes the mind can fully

understand the universe and discover the general truth. Where explanations follow the

evolutionary process of thesis, antithesis and synthesis. We can find this in the Sub Sahara Africa

3 Major barriers in intercultural communication

1. Verbal communication styles2. Variant meanings3. Indirect verbal language

Verbal communication styles1. Direct: verbal messages used to show our intentions in the process of

conversations.2. Indirect: used to conceal or camouflage our true intentions.(4)

The difference between the US and Chinese negotiation styles :

1- Interpersonal orientation :

In the US the deal is seen as the objective of any negotiation while for the Chinese a

negotiation is just part of the process of forming a life long relationship .

2- Power orientation :

It is usually clear where the power lies in a US negotiating team ,the hierarchy is

usually clear with subordinates and experts accompanying the boss making it clear in

Abdelhamied ElRafie

8

the deference they show even if the language used between them is informal.

For the Chinese side particularly if there are a large number of people in the

delegation ,so for the Chinese the consensus building process is undergone .

3- Negotiation strategies : There are two main approaches used in the Us towards negotiations the win/lose

approach or the win /win approach the former approach involves taking up an initial

position and then making concessions if necessary to reach a compromise agreement

, the later approach involves both sides focusing in mutual interests rather than

predetermined positions achieving joint profits.

The Chinese will probably find it difficult to take such linear approach ,for them

negotiation is just one of many encounters whereby the principl is to build a business

partnership for the long term .

4- Time frame:

For the Chinese therefore a negotiation is not a one off event but a step along the path

but for the Americans time is of the essence(3)

Conclusion :

To conclude this final paper I can say that we negotiate on daily basis either formally

or informally and talking about culture doesn’t mean the country culture or the

regional culture but we can add to that the sub regional cultures meaning that within

the one country there are sub regional cultures in which the people with in these sub

regions negotiate but I will go further the negotiation is not just between countries it

is also between businessmen ,old people, young people, males, females so

negotiation is a process that happens on daily life on cultural basis in which it needs a

Abdelhamied ElRafie

9

high quality cultural communication in order to reach an agreement this agreement

could be a deal or a treaty or long/short/medium range relation and it requires lots of

behavioral techniques . That is because ideological ,political and legal differences

provide both a challenge and opportunity (7)

If we apply the last paragraph on the International negotiations each country depends

on the following factors:

1- The real foreign policy of that country .

2- The vision in which that country would like to be looked at .

3- The system of beliefs and interests of that country .

4- The target of the country of negotiations.

5- The techniques to achieve these targets.

So I can finally say that International negotiations are either a cross cultural

communication or the clash between cultures and the way in between these to extremes

is what we can simply call a win /win situation .

ـــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــــ

Abdelhamied ElRafie

10

References

1- Cambridge advanced learner,s dictionary ,Cambridge University Press 2- Berridge ,Geoff , Adictionary of Diplomacy ,Houndmills Basingstake,

Hamshire . Newyork Palgrave Macmillan ,2003.3- Understanding Cross cultural Management,Marie –Joelle Browaeys and

Roger Price,4- Intercultural communication in negotiations ,Marianne Van Vlierden. 5- Mapping Cultures-Strategies For Effective Intercultural Negotiations,

Christopher Moore & Peter Woodrow ,www.mediate.com 6- Negotiating Globally: How to Negotiate Deals, Resolve Disputes, and

Make Decisions Across Cultural BoundariesJossey-Bass Business & Management Series by Brett, Jeanne M.Publication: San Francisco, Calif. Jossey Bass, 2001.

7- Harvard Business Review On Negotiation and Conflict Resolution Harvard Business Review Paperback Series Publication: Boston Harvard Business School Press, 2000.

Abdelhamied ElRafie